Hello dear reader! What an exciting and inspiring last day. I just want to take a moment and say thank you to everyone that has allowed me to be on this trip! My parents, the Marian administration, our lovely chaperones, and you the reader of course! Thank you everything, whether it was helping me pack, proofreading my writing, or letting us leave a day early, this has been such a wonderful trip and has inspired me in so many different ways. I feel truly so thankful to be here and cannot wait to get back to the States to tell you all in person about this trip! Also, happy International Women's Day to everyone! This is a quick shout-out to the woman who made me into who I am today, my lovely mom. She has done so much for me and my siblings and I am eternally in awe of her intelligence, compassion for others, and love of reading. I love you so much Mom!!!! Can't wait to be back home playing gin rummy or watching Criminal Minds with you. 🩷
Me and my amazing mom at the Creighton vs. UCONN game! February 20, 2024
Friday, March 8th
Breakfast: croissant, toast, tea, and fried eggs. The toast was yet again delectable. I didn't spill tea on myself!! #letsgo I've never had a bad croissant, and this one was also delicious. The fried eggs were okay, but smelled kind of weird? I knew we had a long drive though, and being hungry during a road trip is never fun, so I ate the eggs anyway, and they tasted fine! So all in all no harm no foul.
We spent most of the morning driving from Galway to Dublin, and made a few stops at various viewpoints along the way. We stopped at a gas station about halfway through the drive, and I treated myself to a bag of salt and vinegar Taytos! They were perhaps a unique snack for 10:45 in the morning but honestly they hit the spot.
When we got to Dublin, the wonderful John gave us a tour, and I learned a lot about the city!! Did you know that deer roam freely in Dublin's Phoenix Park, and that Dublin is the first city in Europe to have a maternity hospital? Like my dad says, you learn something new every day. John then dropped us off right outside Trinity College, where we walked around for a bit then got in line to buy tickets for The Book of Kells Experience (very official, I know). Unfortunately the only available time slot for our family of 8 was 3:30, which meant we had about 2 hours to kill. You know what that means: lunch!
This is where the "McDonald's from Hell" aspect of my title plays into the story. We walked up, down, and through the 2-block radius we had been limited to so that we wouldn't get kidnapped or lost (gotta love safety precautions though) scouring for somewhere we could get a quick and easy lunch that wasn't a bar or ridiculously expensive, which meant our options were incredibly limited, and in the end we had to go to McDonald's. Good idea, right? Wrong. The order queue took forever, which really wasn't anyone's fault, I was just hangry and tired of standing around. I then also forgot it was a Friday in Lent, and accidentally had chicken nuggets for lunch. Don't fret though, I said like four Hail Mary's while we were walking, so hopefully everything is all good up there. After feasting on my McNuggets and sad fries I thought to myself, "I should use the restroom now so I won't have to while we're looking at the Book of Kells". This is where things start to take a turn for the worse. In my quest to find the bathroom, I walked THREE flights of stairs and did not find them. I then had to ask a worker, who simply pointed to a "toilets" sign with an arrow. At this point you may be thinking, "Simple! Then she followed the arrow and made it to the bathroom!" Unfortunately if you were thinking this, you are wrong. I had to walk up a flight of stairs, through three doors, then up another flight of stairs to reach the bathroom. Keep in mind I'm walking through dimly lit hallway after dimly lit hallway, and the only two things running through my mind are "I'm going to be kidnapped in an Irish McDonald's" and "What was the order of fighting off an attacker Mick Doyle taught us during that CAB?". Fortunately, I finally find the bathroom, and am in and out in a flash because I am so incredibly desperate to get back to my friends. Also, there is a small child trying to kick my stall door in for the entirety of this. Luckily, I made it back to my friends and we saw the light of day yet again!!! If I ever find myself back in Ireland again, you have my solemn promise I will not step inside a single McDonald's.
We did some more window shopping (and actual shopping) and then it was finally time to see the Book of Kells!!! Photography is not allowed in the exhibition room, so I don't have any actual pictures of it, but it was so cool!!!! I've now seen two very cool Bibles with major historical impacts: the Gutenberg Bible and the Book of Kells :) after we saw the Book we got to walk through the Long Room! THIS was a sight to behold. I was stunned by the Book of Kells, and nearly rendered speechless by the Long Room. Just thinking about the amount of important people that have been in "Ireland's front room" and the historical value of the works contained in Trinity's library (an original copy of Shakespeare's First Folio, the literal Book of Kells, etc.) nearly brought me to tears. This trip has genuinely been so moving!!! Visiting the Long Room also fulfilled 8-year-old-me's wish to be a Hogwarts student, so there's that. Also featured in the Long Room is the Brian Boru Harp, which was so awesome to see in person! After the Long Room we went to the digital exhibition, which featured a bunch of really cool displays about the Book of Kells and Trinity as a whole.
By then it was almost 5:00, so we got back on the coach and checked in at the hotel. Quick writing and decompressing time in our rooms, then met in the lobby at 6:00 for our 6:15 dinner reservation at Nancy Hands, a famous pub right down the street from our hotel where Barack Obama ate dinner once! I had mac and cheese and we were all very excited for the brownie sundae on the menu for dessert, but unfortunately it had nuts in it so none of us got dessert out of solidarity #oneforallandallforone
Now we are back in our rooms, blogging and writing! I'm probably going to go to bed very soon, since we have to be up incredibly early tomorrow morning for our flight home 😞
Well that's all folks! Thank you for reading and following along on my journey! I haven't posted all of the writing I've done, but if you read any of the writing that I posted, thank you for doing so!! Hope things are well in Omaha.
Much love,
Maggie 🫶🌈☘️🌟🩷
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